CHAP. II.] WILD PLANTS. SWALLOWS. 35 



garis), although not an indigenous plant, is very abundant and 

 ornamental in the woods here. It has overrun, in modern times, 

 the eastern shores of New England, and made its way many 

 miles inland, to the great annoyance of the agriculturists. Some 

 naturalists wonder how it can spread so fast, as the American 

 birds refuse, like the European ones, to feed on. its red berries : 

 but if it be true that cattle, sheep, and goats occasionally browse 

 on this shrub, there is no mystery about the mode of its migration, 

 for the seeds may be sown in their dung. The aromatic shrub 

 called sweet fern (Comptonia asplenifolia), forms nearly as large 

 a proportion of the undergrowth here as does the real fern (Pteris) 

 in some of our English forests. I have seen this part of North 

 America laid down in some botanical maps as the region of asters 

 and solidagos ; and certainly the variety and abundance of golden 

 rods and asters is at this season very striking, although a white 

 everlasting ( GnafaMuin) is almost equally conspicuous. Among 

 other shrubs, I saw the poison-ivy (Rkus radicans), a species of 

 sumach, growing on rocks and walls. It has no effect on some 

 people, but the slightest touch causes an eruption on the skin of 

 others. A New England botanist once told me that, by way 

 of experiment, he rubbed his arm with the leaves, and they gave 

 rise to a painful swelling, which was long in subsiding. 



In Mr. Hayes s garden at Portsmouth were some of the smaller 

 white-bodied swallows or martins (Hirundo viridis), protected 

 from their enemy, the larger martin (Hirundo purpurea), by 

 having small holes made for them in flower-pots, which the 

 others could not pass through. The larger kind, or house-martin, 

 is encouraged every where, small wooden boxes being made for 

 them on roofs or on the tops of poles, resembling pigeon-houses, 

 which may often be seen on the top of a sign-post before a New 

 England inn. They are useful in chasing away birds of prey 

 from the poultry-yard ; and I once saw a few of them attacking 

 a large hawk. But I suspect they are chiefly favored for mere 

 amusement sake, arid welcomed, like our swallows, as the mes 

 sengers of spring, on their annual return from the south. It is 

 pleasing to hear them chattering with each other, and to mark 

 their elegant forms and bluish-black plumage, or to watch them 



